It turns out that Rich Harden has had a torn shoulder capsule since 2007. Do you know how long ago that is? Look at the date of this post and then do some subtraction. That's a long time! A really long time! Harden has basically been pitching through this with adjusted mechanics for the last four seasons. One has to wonder what he'd have done had he just had the surgery all the way back then and sat out the year. What happens in 2009-2011?

Keith Law's Top 100 prospects ($$$) includes a small bevy of A's. I figure I'll tell you who's on there and who's ranked highest, and that's enough. You can get a subscription for the rest, including Law's writeups:

Jarrod Parker (#31)

A.J. Cole

Sonny Gray

Michael Choice

Derek Norris

The A's, as you can see, don't have a single huge talent, but they've got a small mass of very good ones.